Cloud storage options
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| This site replaces the former Compute Canada documentation site, and is now being managed by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. Ce site remplace l'ancien site de documentation de Calcul Canada et est maintenant géré par l'Alliance de recherche numérique du Canada. |
The existing storage types available in our clouds are:
- Volume storage: The standard storage unit for cloud computing; can be attached to and detached from an instance.
- Ephemeral/Disk storage: Virtual local disk storage tied to the lifecycle of a single instance.
- Object storage: Non-hierarchical storage where data is created or uploaded in whole-file form.
- Shared filesystem storage: Private network attached storage space (similar to NFS/SMB shares); must be configured on each instance where it is mounted.
Attributes of each storage type are compared in the following table:
| Attribute | Volume storage | Ephemeral/Disk storage | Object storage | Shared filesystem storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default storage option | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Can be accessed via a web browser | No | No | Yes | No |
| Access can be restricted for specific source IP ranges | N/A | N/A | Yes (S3 ACL) | N/A |
| Can be mounted on a single VM | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Can be mounted on multiple VMs (and across projects) simultaneously | No | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic backups | No (manually with snapshots) | No | No | Yes (nightly to tape) |
| Suitable for write once, read only, and public access | No | No | Yes | No |
| Suitable for data/files that change frequently | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Hierarchical filesystem | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Suitable for long-term storage | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Suitable mountable dedicated storage for individual servers | Yes | Only for temporary data | No | No |
| Deleted automatically upon deletion of VM | No | Yes | No | No |
| Standard magnitude of allocation | GB | GB | TB | TB |
| Multi-disk fault tolerance | Yes | c-flavors No; p-flavors Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Physical disk-level encryption | No | No | No | No |